


Xander

by tielan



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Episode: s03e22 Graduation Day Part II, F/M, Humor, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-07
Updated: 2011-03-07
Packaged: 2017-10-16 04:18:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/168328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tielan/pseuds/tielan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Men were pigs. Good looking pigs, perhaps; occasionally good-in-bed pigs, but still pigs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Xander

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the het ficathon and is late because I couldn’t get my brain into gear. I’m still not totally satisfied with the fic, but Anya is not my easiest voice, and Wes/Anya is definitely not one of my common pairings!

She didn’t much care for the bar. It was loud and noisy and the men smelled. They seemed impressed with her looks, but less-than-impressed with her evaluation of them after they’d had sex with her.

Men, Anya decided, were all speak and no do. They talked loudly and boastfully and never fulfilled their boasts.

Just like Olaf. _Exactly_ like Olaf.

Sleeping with all these very boring men reminded Anya of exactly why she’d become Anyanka in the first place. Granting wishes had been fun. The range of wishes that had been made, the inventiveness of them...

The man she’d been talking to – actually, the man who was talking _at_ her – belched. Anya was assaulted by a wave of foul-smelling breath, almost as bad as the worst stenches she’d ever known in her thousand-year existence.

Why did women have to bother with men, anyway? The amount of trouble that a woman went through in keeping one was far more than could be justified in the number of orgasms he was inclined to give. It seemed a very bad bargain in Anya’s eyes.

Men were pigs. Good looking pigs, perhaps; occasionally good-in-bed pigs, but still pigs.

If she had the power of the Wish now, she’d have turned every man in this bar into a pig and let them grunt and rummage around like the beasts they were.

Of course, she didn’t have the power of the wish anymore, and she couldn’t do very much about it.

Being human sucked.

Especially when your attempt at a senior year of high school was disrupted by a man trying to achieve ascension into a giant snake.

Especially when the man who you asked, first to the prom, then to run away from the man disrupting everything by trying to achieve ascension into a giant snake, turned you down.

Being human sucked.

She sat, resting her head on her elbow, soaking peanuts in the pool of stale beer collecting near her chin. The shells took a long time to become soggy enough so no cracking was necessary, but Anya preferred to crack them: the sound was like skulls breaking.

“Is this seat taken?”

She spun around, ignoring Mr. Foul Breath in favour of Mr. Nice Voice.

He had a lovely voice. Even when they’d hauled her in to tell them about that other Ascension, she’d liked the sound of his voice. All soft and sweet and husky. Such a nice voice. A bit prissy, but that was okay. He wouldn’t sound prissy when they were having sex.

“Nope. Go ahead and sit,” she told him. She was a bit surprised to see him. She was very surprised by how nice he smelled, slightly tangy. None of the men in the bar smelled as nice as he did. “What are you doing here?” Anya inquired, tilting her glass of soft drink at him. Stupid barman still wouldn’t give her alcohol.

“I could ask the same question of you,” he told her. His eyes were a very lovely blue behind his glasses. “But, as it happens, I find myself at a...loose end in life.”

She admired his profile as she toyed with peanut shells that had been soaking for hours. He was handsome, if a little pristine. Anya had decided that if a man didn’t look delectable when rumpled, then he was obviously an inferior specimen. The best men looked the nicest when a little rumpled. Like Xander.

No, not like Xander.

Her fingers closed around the peanut shell, and it crumbled between her fingers with minimal crunch. She wasn’t going to think of Xander. She was going to admire the very handsome specimen of English manhood before her and possibly try to rumple him a little.

“You survived the ascension? Did you kill the Mayor? Is Xander alive?” Anya frowned a little. She hadn’t intended to ask that last question.

He blinked at the rapidity of her questions. “Anya, please lower your voice.” His own voice was pitched low, and she looked around only to find the wary gazes of the other patrons of the bar upon them.

“I’m sorry,” she told him, not entirely truthfully. “I just wanted to know.”

“Yes, we all survived the Ascension. I understand Buffy killed the Mayor. Blew him up as he was ascending or something like that.”

He didn’t seem very certain about that, and Anya looked at him, piercingly. “You don’t sound certain about that.”

Blue eyes looked down into his drink, and she stared. His cheeks were flushing – from embarrassment? “I...ah... I wasn’t exactly present for... A blow on the head...”

“You got knocked out?” That wasn’t much of a surprise. He didn’t look athletic like the other boys. In that, he was a bit like Xander, only less rumpled.

No! Not like Xander!

Anya felt a frown crossing her face and carefully smoothed it out. Frowns were bad. They brought wrinkles to your face. And men didn’t like women with wrinkles.

“Yes, I got knocked out,” he murmured, and, although she wasn’t the most sensitive of people, Anya could hear the pique in his voice. “A minute into the conflict and I was unconscious. It could have happened to anyone...”

“But it happened to you,” Anya told him, forthrightly. “Well, never mind. They beat the Mayor. Good.” Sunnydale was still whole. And Xander was in Sunnydale. And Anya was _not_ going back to Sunnydale for Xander Harris.

Not if she lived for another thousand years.

But she _did_ wait until he’d finished his beer before asking him if he wanted to have sex.

At least he didn’t grunt as much as the others, and he treated her like she was fragile and delicate, which she wasn’t, but it was nice to be treated that way. In return, she didn’t call for Xander in the middle of sex, which wasn’t exactly her decision, but she didn’t, and she was glad she didn’t.

And he _did_ look nice when rumpled.

“That wasn’t bad,” she told him afterwards.

He looked at her, apparently quite pleased by her pronouncement. “You think so?”

“Yes,” she said. “I’ve slept with quite a few men lately and you’re definitely the best.” As well as the nicest, the least smelly, and the most attractive when naked.

“Well...” He even looked attractive when pleased with himself. And that was hard to pull off.

She wondered if Xander looked like this when he was naked.

Her sigh attracted his attention, “What is it, Anya?” Yes, he was definitely the nicest man so far. He just wasn’t...

“Xander,” she said, tracing patterns on the sheets between them. “I can’t stop thinking about him. It’s very disturbing and quite unnecessary. All I did was ask him to the Prom and he said yes, and he was really very nice but I’ve had sex with a lot of men since then but all I can think of is him.”

He seemed a little taken aback. “Oh... Well... Er... I suppose... I suppose some people do tend to...linger...on the mind somewhat...” He gathered his dignity together and suggested, “Have you considered going back to see him? Returning to...uh...the root of the problem, as it were?”

“But that would just make things worse,” she told him. “I mean, he’d be there, and I’d be here, and I’d want to have sex with him.”

He blinked for a little while, then asked, “Perhaps...it would assist in...um...moving on?”

“But I’ve already moved on!” Anya protested. “I came here. Although it’s not as pleasant as Sunnydale.”

“No, I meant...emotionally moving on.” She looked at him, trying to work out what he meant. He tried to find another way to describe it. “Like scratching an itch?”

“That doesn’t make sense. The itch is still itchy after you’ve scratched it.”

His shoulders slumped. “Oh, er... Well, maybe... When you’re thirsty, you have a drink until you’re not thirsty anymore.”

Anya frowned, then remembered about the wrinkles. Frowning was bad. “You mean if I go to him and we have sex a lot, then I won’t think about him all the time.”

“Uh...” His face was now very bright pink. “I guess so...”

“Oh.” It was a good idea. She could go back to Sunnydale, have sex with Xander, and get him out of her mind. And then she could work out what she was going to do with the rest of her mortal life. “I think I might do that, then.” She patted him on the shoulder, “Thank you for that suggestion.”

He coughed. “You’re welcome. Although, I have to say, this is the most unusual post-coital conversation I’ve ever had.”

“Well, now you have a new experience under your belt,” Anya told him, brightly. “Although why would you want your experiences there, anyway?”

“I believe it’s a figure of speech,” he said, turning over and running a hand through his hair. “And I think I’ve had enough new experiences to last me a very long time.”

“Really?” Anya wasn’t terribly interested in his experiences. Other people’s problems were boring. But her response had started him off.

“Well, they sent me to act as Watchers to the Slayer in Sunnydale, putting a great deal of trust in me and my ability to handle any problems that might come up, and I failed.” He sounded quite miserable about it. “So they fired me.”

Anya hoped he wasn’t expecting her to be sympathetic. She could manage classes and listening to Harmony Kendall whine about how inadequate school guys were. Actual sympathy was a different matter.

He rambled quite a bit about how disappointed his father was, and how he didn’t know what he was going to do with himself now. And, in desperation to shut him up, Anya suggested, “Maybe you should try demon-hunting.”

That silenced him almost immediately. “--considered going to South Am-- Demon hunting?”

“Yes,” she said. “There are men and women out there who make a living from hunting down demons that are tormenting people. It’s quite lucrative, actually.” She’d considered doing it herself, before she realised that as far as age and means went, she looked like a high school graduate and had no income.

“Hmm...” He was thinking about her idea quite seriously. _Very_ seriously, in fact. And he looked handsome while doing it, too.

Maybe she should see if he needed her help hunting demons, and give up this idea about going back to Sunnydale and Xander...

So she stroked his chest and let her hand drift lower until she reached a part of him that wasn’t amenable to thinking at all. And he seemed more than happy to be distracted from his goal of becoming a rogue demon hunter.

But she still couldn’t remember his name.

Other than that it wasn’t Xander.


End file.
